College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
Abstract
Accurate estimation of N2O emission is one of the
primary objectives to project the warming potential. However, the global
patterns and main controlling factors of soil N2O
emission remain elusive. We compiled a dataset with 6016 field
observations from 219 articles and found that the averaged soil
N2O emission rate was 1111.8 ± 26.59 µg N
m-2 day-1. Soil N2O
emission rates were significantly influenced by climatic factors (i.e.
mean annual temperature), soil physical and chemical properties (e.g.
pH, nitrate, ammonium, and total nitrogen), and microbial traits
(microbial biomass nitrogen) at a global scale. The combined direct
effects of soil nitrate, ammonium, and total nitrogen (combined standard
coefficient = 0.45) accounted for the most variance of global soil
N2O emissions (total standard coefficient = 0.84). This
study highlights the critical roles of soil nitrogen substrates on
N2O emission, which will be helpful to optimize the
process-models on soil N2O emissions.
Keywords:
Nitrous oxide emission; nitrate; ammonium; organic nitrogen; microbial
biomass; warming
Introduction
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third most important
greenhouse gas, following carbon dioxide and methane.
N2O is a long-lived gas in atmosphere with an average
lifetime of 116 ± 9 years (Pratheret al. 2015), and the radiative forcing of N2O
per unit is up to 298 times larger than that of carbon dioxide on a
100-year timescale. Soil
N2O emission dominates the total N2O
emission at the global scale (Syakila &
Kroeze 2011). Global soil N2O emission increases by
approximately 59% from preindustrial period to the recent decade
(Tian et al. 2019) and will
increase to 16 Tg N yr-1 by 2050
(Bouwman et al. 2013). The
N2O forcing will increase by 1.7% when atmospheric
N2O concentrations reach 525 ppb
(Etminan et al. 2016). To project
the warming potential, we need to accurately simulate soil
N2O emission. However, there are large uncertainties in
the projections of soil N2O emission
(Del Grosso et al. 2010;
Tian et al. 2019), which ranges
from 3.3 to 13.3 Tg N yr-1 using different models and
the relative predictive error is up to 235%
(Zhang et al. 2018). Moreover, the
simulated N2O emission does not match the observed data
well (Zhang et al. 2018). To
optimize the models, it is urgent to understand the drivers of soil
N2O emission at a global scale.
Soil N2O comes from soil nitrification and
denitrification, which can be regulated by climatic factors, soil
physical and/or chemical properties, and microbial traits. Of climatic
factors, higher temperature usually motivates soil N2O
emission in terrestrial ecosystems through denitrification
(Zhang et al. 2019c;
Wang et al. 2020). Mean annual
temperature also significantly influences soil nitrification on the
global scale (Li et al. 2020),
which may eventually impact global soil N2O emission.
Since water condition affect both nitrification and denitrificationvia altering soil oxygen availability
(Bollmann & Conrad 1998), higher soil
water content significantly increases soil N2O emission
(Wu et al. 2017).
Comparing with climatic factors, the roles of soil properties on soil
N2O emission remain more controversial. Some studies
found soil N2O emission peaks at pH 6.5 and then
decreases with increasing pH (Stevenset al. 1998), whereas another study showed that
N2O production remains constant with changing soil pH
(Cuhel et al. 2010). The
conflicting results are also reported about the effects of soil texture
on N2O emission. Although soil texture can impact soil
N2O emission in theory
(Henault et al. 2012),
N2O emission does not change much with difference clay
or sandy loam content in croplands
(Syvasalo et al. 2004).
Additionally, a recent study discovered soil cation exchange capacity
regulates soil N2O emission in croplands
(Liu et al. 2019), but
Kravchenko et al. (2002) pointed
out that soil cation exchange capacity does not account for the
fluctuations of soil N2O emission.
As for soil microbes, at the local scale, soil N2O
emission may positively correlate with microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN)
(Zhang et al. 2019a), but there is
no obvious role of soil microbes on N2O emission in arid
regions (Yin et al. 2019).
Therefore, it remains unclear how those climate and soil chemical and
physical factors individually and interactively regulate soil
N2O emission, which requires a synthesis to reveal the
mechanisms underlying the variations of global soil N2O
emission.
Even some ecosystem models tried to incorporate the role of climatic
factors (e.g. precipitation) and soil properties (e.g.soil pH, bulk density, soil texture)
(Werner et al. 2007), the
simulated soil N2O still fails to match the observed
N2O emission well (Dangalet al. 2019). For instance, Fuchset al. (2020) points out the IPCC usually underestimates
N2O emission in an intensively managed grassland. The
most of models may miss some important regulators, beside climate and
soil properties, in driving soil N2O emission.
Theoretically, soil N content should be critical for N2O
emission since it provides substrate for producing N2O.
A recent global assessment using ensemble of terrestrial biosphere
models also found that global N fertilizer application contributes 2.0 ±
0.8 Tg N2O-N yr-1 during 2007-2016,
manure application contributes 0.6 ± 0.4 Tg N2O-N
yr-1, and N deposition contributes 26% of global soil
N2O emission (Tianet al. 2019). Furthermore, the deceases in
cropland-N2O emissions after 2003 are mainly ascribed to
the reduction in usage of N fertilizer in China
(Shang et al. 2019). Therefore, we
hypothesized that soil N contents might play an important role on
regulating soil N2O emissions at the global scale. In
fact, some models have recognized the important roles of N substrates
for soil N2O emission, but used the amounts of
fertilization (e.g. N fertilizer, manure, and N deposition) as
input data (Tian et al. 2018)
because the data of soil N contents are scarce and the relationships
between soil N2O emission and soil N contents are
unclear. There are various N substrates for soil N2O
emission because soil nitrification and denitrification are complex
processes. Soil ammonium and organic N are critical for soil
nitrification at the global scale (Liet al. 2020) since they particulate autotrophic nitrification
and heterotrophic nitrification, respectively. Soil nitrate is important
for denitrification because the nitrate is the substate of nitrate
reductase in the first step of denitrification. It is imperative to test
the roles of different soil N substrates on soil N2O
emission at a global scale.
In this study, we compiled the available data from field measurements on
soil N2O emission (6016 observations from 219 articles)
across typically terrestrial ecosystems (croplands, forests, grasslands,
and wetlands). The specific questions addressed in this study were: 1.
What are the global patterns of soil N2O emission rate
across terrestrial ecosystems? 2. How do climatic factors, soil physical
and chemical properties, soil carbon, soil N substrates, microbial
characteristics influence soil N2O emission rate at a
global scale? And 3. Which factors are the main drivers on global soil
N2O emission rate?
Materials and methods
To construct dataset of soil N2O emission
We compiled data from the published peer-view articles. First, we
searched the articles taking advantage of two platform: Web of Science
(http://apps.webofknowledge.com)
and China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database
(http://www.cnki.net) up to
July 20, 2019. The terms to search articles were ‘Nitrous oxide’ OR
‘N2O’ AND ‘Soil’. We also searched articles using Google
Scholar. All searched articles were composited into one file and the
duplications of articles were removed, resulting in 2165 papers (1730
papers in English and 435 papers in Chinese). The eligible articles were
sifted out following the criteria: 1. Soil N2O emission
was collected in situ; 2. The experiment lasted more than two days where
the initial measurements were removed from dataset to eliminate the
impacts of experimental disturbance; 3. There were unambiguous units for
soil N2O emission rate; 4. The dataset did not include
the N2O emission from water (e.g. river sediments
or lake sediments). It remained 219 articles after sifting to construct
the dataset of soil N2O emission.
The site-specific information were also distilled from articles, such as
the geographic coordinates (i.e. latitude and longitude for
experimental site), climatic variables (e.g. mean annual
temperature and mean annual precipitation), soil physical and chemical
properties (e.g. the contents of sand/clay, soil bulk density,
pH, cation exchange capacity, soil moisture by weight). The content of
soil C and N (e.g. soil organic C, total soil N, dissolved soil
organic C, dissolved organic N, available phosphorus, ammonium, nitrate,
and the ratio of C to N) and soil microbial biomass (i.e.microbial biomass carbon (MBC), MBN, and MBC:MBN) also came from
articles. The replicates of experiment were also extracted from
articles.
Data overview
The dataset of soil N2O emission rate from field
experiments were constructed on the basis of 219 articles, which
included 6016 observations. The dataset of soil N2O
emission rate covered all continents but Antarctica (Figure S1) and the
dataset mainly encompassed four ecosystem types. Specifically, 4356
observations came from croplands, 679 observations from forests, 335
observations from grasslands, 394 observations from wetlands, and 252
observations from unclassified ecosystems. The climatic factors and soil
properties covered a large scope. For example, the mean annual
precipitation ranged from 95 to 4395 mm; the clay content was from 0.3
to 90%; and soil pH varied from 3.08 to 8.77.
Data analyses
All soil N2O emission rate unified units into µg N
m-2 day-1. The averaged soil
N2O emission rate of each ecosystem type/climate zone
were calculated and compared using ANOVA approach. The post hoc were
tested using ‘TukeyHSD ’. All statistical analyses were conducted
with ‘stats ’ package.
The relationships between soil N2O emission rate and
environmental factors (e.g. climatic factors, soil physical and
chemical properties, the contents of soil C and nutrients, and microbial
biomass) were tested using linear mixed-effect models. In general, the
formula was:
\begin{equation}
ln(N_{2}O\ emission\ rate)=\beta_{0}+\beta_{1}\times lnX+\pi_{\text{study}}+\varepsilon\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ (1)\nonumber \\
\end{equation}where β 0, β 1 are the
intercept and slope value, and πstudy , εare the random effect and sampling error, X is the environmental factor,
respectively. The random effect, ‘study’, could consider the
autocorrelation among observations within the same article.
The structural equation models were used to test the multivariable
relationships between soil N2O emission rate and
environmental factors. Initially, we structured the concept models
according to the bivariable relationships between soil
N2O emission rate and climatic factors, soil physical
and chemical properties, the contents of soil C and nutrients, as well
as microbial biomass. There were direct effects from environmental
factors on soil N2O emission rate and indirect effects
that climatic factors, soil properties, and the substrates influenced
soil N2O emission rate through changing soil microbial
biomass. The environmental factors (e.g. climatic factors, soil
physical and chemical properties, soil N contents, and microbial
biomass) were viewed as the fixed effects, the ‘study’ was the random
effect, and the replicates were ‘weight’ in each structural equation
model. Initially, all environmental factors were incorporated into
structural equation models, however, the models were not acceptable. The
structural equation models were tested by reducing the number of
variables one by one. Finally, the optimal models were presented with
the lowest Fisher value (1.2) and Akaike information criterion value
(35.1). The structure equation models were conducted using
‘piecewiseSEM ’ package. The redundant variables were omitted in
the final structure equation models. For example, the mean annual
precipitation did not significantly influence soil N2O
emission rate and microbial biomass when soil moisture was incorporated
into models, so we removed mean annual precipitation from models.
To test whether the multiple relationships were robust, we separately
conducted analyses in each ecosystem. Although the structural equation
model cannot be applied in ecosystem without enough data (e.g.wetlands), we normalized all data (Z-score normalization) and factored
out the weighted slope in each ecosystem. To get a robust weighted
slope, the bivariate relationship was removed while the number of
observations was less than 20.
Results
The global patterns of soil N2O emission rate
The averaged soil N2O emission rate was 1111.79 (SE =
26.59, N = 6016) µg N m-2 day-1across terrestrial ecosystems (Figure 1a), with large variation between
different ecosystem types. The soil N2O emission rate
was the highest in wetlands (1433.47 ± 121.75 µg N m-2day-1, N = 394) but lowest in grassland (857.64 ±
77.89 µg N m-2 day-1, N = 335).
Croplands had significantly larger soil N2O emission
rate (1099.02 ± 31.85 µg N m-2day-1, N = 4356) than forests (850.05 ± 64.56 µg N
m-2 day-1, N = 679). There were no
significant differences in soil N2O emission rate
between forests and grasslands (p = 0.99).
Among climate zones, humid subtropical climate zone had the greatest
soil N2O emission rate (1424.80 ± 116.84 µg N
m-2 day-1, N = 454) (Figure 1b).
Similarly, the soil N2O emission rate was high under
tropical climate (1023.99 ± 144.74 µg N m-2day-1, N = 177) and temperate oceanic climate (1257.39
± 52.61 µg N m-2 day-1, N = 1337).
There were no significant differences among tropical climate,
monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate, and temperate oceanic
climate. The smallest N2O emission was observed under
semi-arid climate (188.33 ± 15.71 µg N m-2day-1, N = 241).
Bivariate relationships of soil N2O emission rate with
environmental factors
Soil N2O emission rate significantly increased with mean
annual temperature (slope = 0.73, p = 0.002, N = 5404) (Figure 2a), and
slightly increased with mean annual precipitation (slope = 0.20, p =
0.11, N = 5435, Figure 2b). Soil physical and chemical properties also
significantly influenced soil N2O emission rate at a
global scale (Figures 2c-h). Specifically, soil N2O
emission rate decreased with higher soil bulk density (slope = -0.85, p
< 0.001, N = 1828), and significantly increased with higher
soil pH (slope = 0.10, p = 0.02, N = 4491), cation exchange capacity
(slope = 0.57, p < 0.001, N = 343), and soil moisture (slope =
0.70, p < 0.001, N = 993). Soil N2O emission
rate tended to increase with soil clay contents (N = 2899), but the
relationship was not significant (p = 0.09). Soil N2O
emission rate did not significantly change with soil sand content (p =
0.32, N = 2705).
Soil N substrates, carbon, and phosphorus influenced soil
N2O emission rate at a global scale (Figure 3). Soil
organic matter could promote N2O emission. For instance,
soil N2O emission rate increased with greater soil
organic C (slope = 0.40, p < 0.001, N = 4008), total soil N
(slope = 0.52, p < 0.001, N = 3455), soil dissolved organic N
(slope = 0.81, p < 0.001, N = 237), while there were no
significant relationship between soil N2O emission rate
and soil dissolved organic C (slope = 0.01, p = 0.92, N = 612). Soil
N2O emission rate decreased against the higher soil C:N
ratio (p < 0.001, N = 3385). More soil available phosphorus
was likely to increase soil N2O emission (slope = 0.61,
p < 0.001, N = 911). Soil inorganic N contents also influenced
N2O emission rate, that is, soil N2O
emission rate significantly accelerated with greater concentrations of
soil ammonium (slope = 0.27, p < 0.001, N = 2479) and nitrate
(slope = 0.37, p < 0.001, N = 2919) at a global scale.
Soil microbial biomass influenced soil N2O emission rate
as well (Figure 4). Specifically, soil N2O emission rate
increased with greater soil MBC (slope = 0.29, p = 0.03, N = 449) and
MBN (slope = 0.48, p < 0.001, N = 342). The soil
N2O emission rate decreased with higher ratio of MBC:MBN
at a global scale (slope = -0.49, p = 0.04, N = 231).
Multivariable relationships between soil N2O emission
rate and environmental factors
The contents of soil nitrate, ammonium, total soil N, MBN, mean annual
temperature and soil moisture directly influenced soil
N2O emission rate in structural equation models at a
global scale (Figure 5). Among these factors, the N substates
(i.e. nitrate, ammonium, total N) played the most important role
in determining soil N2O emission rate. Specially, the
greater concentrations of soil nitrate significantly accelerated soil
N2O emission rate with the standard coefficient of 0.21
(p < 0.001). Moreover, soil N2O emission rate
increased with greater concentrations of
total soil N (standard coefficient
= 0.13, p < 0.001) and ammonium (standard coefficient = 0.11,
p < 0.001). The joint direct effects (combined standard
coefficient = 0.45) of soil nitrate, ammonium, and total soil N
accounted for more than half of total direct effects (total standard
coefficient = 0.84). Among climatic factors and soil physical/chemical
properties, mean annual temperature (standard coefficient = 0.18, p
< 0.001) and soil moisture (standard coefficient = 0.17, p
< 0.001) play equivalent roles to drive the changes of soil
N2O emission rate.
Soil N substates and soil properties also influenced soil
N2O emission rate indirectly via changing soil
microbial biomass in the structural equation models. For example,
although soil pH did not directly influence soil N2O
emission rate (standard coefficient = 0.04, p = 0.14), higher soil pH
could increase soil MBN (standard coefficient = 0.09, p <
0.001) which subsequently promoted soil N2O emission
rate (standard coefficient = 0.04, p < 0.001). Moreover, soil
MBN increased with greater soil ammonium (standard coefficient = 0.09, p
< 0.001) and soil moisture (standard coefficient = 0.10, p
< 0.001), and soil MBN was likely to augment with greater
total soil N (standard coefficient = 0.003, p = 0.66), and then greater
soil MBN promoted soil N2O emission rate.
Together, mean annual temperature, soil moisture, pH, MBN, and soil N
substrates accounted for 40% variations of soil N2O
emission. The concentrations of soil N substrates dominated the
variations of soil N2O emission rate (total standard
coefficient = 0.45) in comparison with soil moisture (total standard
coefficient = 0.19) and mean annual temperature (total standard
coefficient = 0.18) at a global scale.
Bivariate relationships of soil N2O emission rate with
environmental factors in different ecosystems
The soil N2O emission rate pervasively correlated with
the concentrations of soil nitrate (weighted slope = 0.36 in croplands,
0.36 in forests, 0.30 in grasslands, and 0.27 in wetlands, respectively)
and ammonium (weighted slope = 0.26 in croplands, 0.25 in forests, 0.27
in grasslands, and 0.27 in wetlands, respectively) in each ecosystem
type (Figure 6). Soil N2O emission rate also positively
correlated with the concentrations of total soil N in each ecosystem
(weighted slope = 0.19 in croplands, 0.24 in forests, and 0.35 in
grasslands, respectively) except for wetlands (weighted slope = 0.04, p
= 0.81). In addition, soil N2O emission rate positively
related to MBN in croplands (weighted slope = 0.17) and forests
(weighted slope = 0.20). Soil moisture played an important role in
determining soil N2O emission rate in croplands
(weighted slope = 0.18), forests (weighted slope = 0.30), and grasslands
(weighted slope = 0.41), whereas the relationship was insignificant in
wetlands (p = 0.11). The soil N2O emission rate did not
show consistent relationships with other environmental factors across
ecosystem types. For example, there were significantly positive
relationships between soil N2O emission rate and mean
annual temperature in croplands and forests rather than in grasslands (p
= 0.38) and wetlands (p = 0.72). Soil N2O emission rate
significantly positively related to mean annual precipitation in forests
and grasslands rather than in croplands (p = 0.86) or wetlands (p =
0.35).
Discussion
This study uncovers the general patterns and controlling factors of soil
N2O emission rate at a global scale. The soil N
substrates (i.e. nitrate, ammonium, and soil organic N) accounted
for the most variations of soil N2O emission in
comparison with climatic factors and soil physical and chemical
properties. The global synthesis enables us to reconcile controversial
viewpoints on the controlling factors on soil N2O
emissions and set a benchmark to evaluate nitrogen cycling models.
The main drivers of soil N2O emission rate at a global
scale
Soil N substrates (i.e. nitrate, ammonium, and total soil N),
microbial biomass, soil moisture, and mean annual temperature are the
drivers of N2O emission rate across terrestrial
ecosystems. Among them, the N substrates are the most important
controlling factors on soil N2O emission rate at a
global scale, which is contrast to previous studies that found soil pH
is the chief controller of soil N2O emission at the
global scale while soil substrates were not considered
(Wang et al. 2018b). High soil pH
promotes N mineralization (Li et
al. 2019) and increases MBN (Figure 5 and
(Li et al. 2020)) which
subsequently facilitates N2O emission. However, when we
considered the role of soil N substrates, soil pH played a less
important role for predicting N2O emission (Figure 5).
The great soil nitrate availability promotes denitrification and
therefore increases N2O emission. There are some reasons
for that soil nitrate is important for N2O emission.
Soil nitrate is the reactant for denitrification. The denitrifier
activity positively correlates with nitrate contents
(Enwall et al. 2010). Moreover,
soil denitrification enzyme activity is higher in soils with more
nitrate (Gardner & White 2010). For
example, soil denitrification enzymatic activity increases from 0.02 mg
N kg-1 h-1 to 11.6 mg N
kg-1 h-1 under nitrate additions in
some wetlands (White & Reddy 1999).
Additionally, higher soil nitrate increases the ratio of
N2O to N2 during denitrification
(Senbayram et al. 2012). For
instance, N2O:N2 increases from 19%
under 10 mg N kg-1 to 59% under 100 mg N
kg-1 (Wang et al.2013).
Soil ammonium and soil total N (almost in organic form) also
significantly impact soil N2O emission. Great soil
ammonium level increases ammonia-oxidizing bacteria abundance
(Tian et al. 2014) that can
promote soil autotrophic nitrification. For example, soil
N2O emission increases from 238-277 g N
ha-1 yr-1 to 853-1301 g N
ha-1 yr-1 when the aqua ammonia
applies from 0 to 260 kg ha-1(Pittelkow et al. 2013).
Soil organic N is the substrate of heterotrophic nitrification. In some
cases, soil heterotrophic nitrification accounts for 7-19% of total
nitrification (Islam et al. 2007)
and even more than 50% of the total nitrification in acid soil
condition (Liu et al. 2015).
Moreover, soil organic N can increase soil microbial biomass and
subsequently increase N mineralization (Liet al. 2019). A recent study revealed that the content of soil
total N is the main driver for soil nitrification rate at the global
scale (Li et al. 2020). In line
with our finding, a recent study revealed that manure application also
substantially increases N2O emission by 5.1-58.2%
(Zhou et al. 2017). The key role
of soil N contents on soil N2O emission was also
confirmed by the consistently positive relationships between soil
N2O emission rate and soil nitrate, ammonium, and total
soil N in each ecosystem type (Figure 6).
Soil moisture influences soil N2O emission directly and
also indirectly through changing soil microbial biomass (Figure 5). Soil
moisture regulates N2O emission possibly through the
availability of substrates and the microbial activity. Soil with low
moisture hampers the diffusion of soil N substrates to microbial cells
(Stark & Firestone 1995). Soil moisture
can influence the dynamics of soil microbial biomass, e.g. the
higher soil moisture promoting soil MBN by 56.3-91.4% in dry ecosystems
(Huang et al. 2018). Moreover, at
low soil moisture microbial cell dehydration occurs which lowers the
activity of nitrifying bacteria (Stark &
Firestone 1995). Thus, the efficiency of soil processes are stimulated
under higher soil moisture (Zhang et
al. 2019b). Finally, soil moisture can alter soil nitrification and
denitrification where both processes can produce N2O
(Bollmann & Conrad 1998). In some cases,
more N2O emission comes from denitrification at a soil
moisture more than 70%, in which N2O emitted 1 to 412
mg N m-2 per 15 days when soil moisture increased from
40 to 90% (Ruser et al. 2006).
The important role of soil moisture on N2O emission is
also manifested that it is the important predictor of the temperature
sensitivity (Q 10) of N2O emission
in an alpine meadow ecosystem (Zhanget al. 2020).
Higher temperature can stimulate the activity of microbes and
subsequently influences soil N2O emission. High
temperature stimulates the activities of nitrifier and denitrifier. A
recent study showed that the assimilation of13CO2 by ammonia-oxidizing archaea
(one type of autotrophic nitrifier) increases when soil temperature is
elevated by 3°C (Hu et al. 2016).
Similarly, warming (+ 3.6°C) enhances nirS-type denitrifiers by 38%,
nirK-type denitrifiers by 82% (Quet al. 2018), and norB-type denitrifier by 4.32%
(Zhou et al. 2012). In some meadow
ecosystem with higher soil moisture, the changes of temperature can
explain up to 35% variations of annual soil N2O flux
(Hu et al. 2010).
Implications for soil N2O emission under global change
Fertilization is a common management in croplands, which can
dramatically increase soil nitrate and ammonium concentrations that will
promote soil N2O emission. As reported, the rise of
N2O emission is mainly ascribed to accelerating usage of
synthetic N fertilizers after 1960
(Davidson 2009). A recent study revealed
that the amount of N into croplands under the current fertilization far
exceeds the capacity of crop uptake, because crop only uptake about 48.5
kg N ha-1 while the amount of N fertilization is 240
kg N ha-1 (Chen et
al. 2017). The surplus N fertilization may lose in the form of
N2O. A meta-analysis reported soil N2O
emission increases by 90% under N application at 50-100 kg N
ha-1 and the N2O emission increases by
up to 262% under N application at 250-300 kg N ha-1in croplands (Sun et al. 2016). In
addition, the fertilization does not only enhance soil
N2O emission in croplands, but impact soil
N2O emission of wetlands through runoff. The N is
imported into wetlands that will emit in the form of N2O
since the N2O emission rate are also sensitive to
nitrate/ammonium in wetlands (Figure 6). The higher N2O
emission rate in wetlands (Figure 1) may be caused by the higher N
concentrations of runoff from croplands that has increased by 31-46%
since 1990 in China (Hou et al.2018). The increasing N concentrations of runoff
(Wang et al. 2018a) and the higher
organic N eventually enhance soil N2O emission in
wetlands. In the late century, the N application in croplands increase
substantially in the form of synthetic N
(Yu et al. 2019a), in some regions
the amount of N application has been up to 550-600 kg N
ha-1 yr-1(Ju et al. 2009). To meet the
growing food requirement, the fertilizer inputs will not decrease in the
next century (Erisman et al.2008), therefore, soil N2O emission will
correspondingly increase under growing fertilization in the near future.
Nitrogen deposition also increases soil N2O emission.
Soil N2O emission is increased by 91.3%
(Deng et al. 2020) and 215%
(Liu & Greaver 2009) under N deposition
at the global scale. High N deposition increased the N2O
flux where average annual N2O fluxes increased by 13.7%
at 7 kg N ha-1 yr-1, 47.6% at 20 kg
N ha-1 yr-1, and 98.7% at 40 kg N
ha-1 yr-1, respectively
(Yan et al. 2018). In the last
four decades, global N deposition increases by 8%
(Ackerman et al. 2019), and the N
deposition still is the critical question on earth, for example, N
deposition (i.e. NHx and NOx)
amounts up to 19.6 – 20.4 kg N ha-1yr-1 in China (Yuet al. 2019b). Although N deposition can contribute to global
greening (by 9%) (Zhu et al.2016), the role of N deposition on N2O emission should
also be paid more attentions.
Warming will increase soil N2O emission as well. The
previous experimental studies showed that warming can stimulate soil
N2O emission and the rate of increase is very steep when
soil denitrification is the dominant process
(Smith 1997). A recent study revealed
warming significantly increases soil N2O emission when
soil N substrates is adequate (Zhanget al. 2020), indicating that warming may enhance soil
N2O emission in croplands with fertilization.
Implications for ecosystem modeling
The dataset and the findings in this study can facilitate modeling study
of soil N2O emission. First, this study complied a big
data (i.e. 6016 observations) of soil N2O
emission from field across main terrestrial ecosystem types to provide
benchmark for model evaluation. Second, the data can be helpful to
calibrate process-based model, for instance, Dynamic Land Ecosystem
Model (DLEM) calculates soil N2O emission on the basis
of nitrification and denitrification processes primarily based on soil N
substrates, temperature, and soil moisture
(Xu et al. 2017). Our data can be
useful for calibrating parameters of models. Third, the findings in this
study that N substrates are critical for soil N2O
emission across terrestrial ecosystems will offer insights for model
development. For example, soil organic N and MBN significantly influence
soil N2O emission at the global scale, particularly in
croplands, forests, and grasslands. Moreover, a recent study also
revealed that soil organic N can explain the most variations of soil
nitrification at the global scale (Liet al. 2020). However, most land models in predicting soil
N2O have not considered the roles of soil organic N and
MBN (Tian et al. 2018). Thus,
incorporating soil N substrates and MBN may reduce the model uncertainty
in projection of soil N2O emission.
Uncertainties and limitations
There are some uncertainties in this synthesis. First, climatic factors,
soil physical and/or chemical properties, the concentrations of
substrate can influence soil N2O emission through
changing soil microbial biomass or the activities of microbes. Although
we verified that soil substrates and soil properties affect soil
N2O emission rate via MBN (Figure 5), we did not
test the effects of the microbial activities because of data paucity. In
nitrification and denitrification, there are many functional genes
expressing enzymes to participate the specific processes. For instance,
ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea mediate the
first step of soil nitrification, and the community dynamics may be
important for nitrification
(Theodorakopoulos et al. 2017).
Therefore, the roles of functional microbes on soil N2O
emission remain to be tested at a global scale. Second, soil moisture
may play roles on soil N2O emission via altering
soil redox potential (Rubol et al.2012) other than soil microbial biomass. We did not compile enough data
of redox potential to test in this study. Third, the data mainly came
from croplands (72.4%). Although the relationships between soil
N2O emission and environmental factors were similar in
other ecosystem types (Figure 6), the variations of weighted slope were
obviously larger when the number of observations was small in wetlands.
This study revealed the comprehensive patterns of and identified
controlling factors on soil N2O emission rates at the
global scale. Although climatic factors (e.g. mean annual
temperature), soil physical and chemical properties (i.e. soil
pH, bulk density, and soil moisture) significantly influenced soil
N2O emission, soil N substrates (i.e. soil
nitrate, ammonium, and total soil N) accounted for the most variations
in soil N2O emission rates at the global scale. The
critical roles of soil N contents in soil N2O emission
were confirmed by the consistently significantly positive relationships
between soil N2O emission rates and the contents of soil
nitrate, ammonium, and total soil N across ecosystem types. The findings
highlight the necessity that soil N substrates (i.e. nitrate,
ammonium, and total soil organic N) should be comprehensively
incorporated into models to improve the projection accuracy of soil
N2O emission at the global scale.
Data Accessibility
Data supporting the results are found in supplementary.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (31988102, 31625006), the CAS international collaboration program
(131A11KYSB20180010), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China
(2018M641459),and the International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship
Program (20190071).
Author contributions
Zhaolei Li carried out the
analyses. Zhaoli Li and Shuli Niu wrote the first draft of manuscript.
All authors heavily involved in writing.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests
Figure legends
Figure 1
The changes of soil N2O emission rate with ecosystems
(a) and climate zones (b). The green bars are standard error and the
white values are the numbers of observations in ecosystems. The
abbreviation of UE stands for unclassified ecosystem (a). The climate
zones were classified according to Köppen Climate Classification. Cwa is
Monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate. Cfa is Humid subtropical
climate. Cfb is Temperate oceanic climate. Af, Am, and Aw are Tropical
rainforest climate, Tropical monsoon climate, and Tropical wet and dry
climate, respectively. Dfb is Warm-summer humid continental climate. Dfa
is Hot-summer humid continental climate. Dwa and Dwb are
Monsoon-influenced hot-summer humid continental climate and
Monsoon-influenced warm-summer humid continental climate, respectively.
BSh and BSk are Hot semi-arid climate and Cold semi-arid climate,
respectively. The average soil N2O emission rate of
climate zone with the observations being more than 100 was presented
(b). The different letters above bars indicate significantly different
soil N2O emission rate.
Figure 2
The bivariate relationships between soil N2O emission
rate and mean annual temperature (MAT, a), mean annual precipitation
(MAP, b), soil sand content (c), clay content (d), bulk density (BD, e),
pH (f), cation exchange capacity (CEC, g), and soil moisture (h) at a
global scale using the logarithmically transformed data. The green lines
with grey shadings are the slopes ± 95% confidence intervals. The size
of circles is the number of replicates from 1 to 60. The number without
parentheses is the number of observations and the number with
parentheses is for studies.
Figure 3
The bivariate relationships between soil N2O emission
rate and carbon and nitrogen, namely, the content of soil organic carbon
(SOC, a), soil nitrogen (TN, b), the ratio of soil carbon to nitrogen
(soil C:N, c), soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC, d), soil dissolved
organic nitrogen (DON, e), available phosphorus (AP, f), the
concentration of soil ammonium
(NH4+-N, g), and soil nitrate
(NO3--N, h) at a global scale using
the logarithmically transformed data. The green lines with grey shadings
are the slopes ± 95% confidence intervals. The size of circles is the
number of replicates from 1 to 60. The number without parentheses is the
number of observations and the number with parentheses is for studies.
Figure 4
The bivariate relationships between soil N2O emission
rate and soil microbial characteristics, namely, microbial biomass
carbon (MBC, a), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN, b), and the ratio of
microbial biomass carbon to microbial biomass nitrogen (MBC:MBN, c) at a
global scale using the logarithmically transformed data. The green lines
with grey shadings are the slopes ± 95% confidence intervals. The size
of circles is the number of replicates from 1 to 60. The number without
parentheses is the number of observations and the number with
parentheses is for studies.
Figure 5
The multiple relationships of soil N2O emission rate at
the global scale. The orange lines are the significantly positive
relationships, blue lines are the significantly negative relationships,
and the green dashed lines are the insignificant relationships, in which
the statistically significant level is α ≤ 0.05. Numbers are
standardized coefficients. MAT, SM, TN, and MBN represent mean annual
temperature, soil moisture, total soil nitrogen, and microbial biomass
nitrogen, respectively.
Figure 6
The slopes of the bivariate relationships between soil
N2O emission rate and MAT (mean annual temperature), MAP
(mean annual precipitation), Sand, Clay, BD (bulk density), pH, CEC
(cation exchange capacity), Moisture, SOC (soil organic carbon), TN
(total soil nitrogen), soil C:N, DOC (soil dissolved organic carbon),
DON (dissolved organic nitrogen), AP (available phosphorus),
NH4-N, NO3-N, MBC (soil microbial
biomass carbon), MBN (microbial biomass nitrogen), MBC:MBN across
terrestrial ecosystems. The blue dot is averaged slope and the bars are
95% confidence intervals. The values in parentheses are the number of
studies and values without parentheses are the number of observations.
Figure 1